Posted: 28 Sep 2010 09:27 AM PDT

Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Last updated 10:38 a.m. PT

By BETH J. HARPAZ
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK -- Second-graders who can't tie shoes or zip jackets. Four-year-olds in Pull-Ups diapers. Five-year-olds in strollers. Teens and preteens befuddled by can openers and ice-cube trays. College kids who've never done laundry, taken a bus alone or addressed an envelope.

Are we raising a generation of nincompoops? And do we have only ourselves to blame? Or are some of these things simply the result of kids growing up with push-button technology in an era when mechanical devices are gradually being replaced by electronics?

Susan Maushart, a mother of three, says her teenage daughter "literally does not know how to use a can opener. Most cans come with pull-tops these days. I see her reaching for a can that requires a can opener, and her shoulders slump and she goes for something else."

Teenagers are so accustomed to either throwing their clothes on the floor or hanging them on hooks that Maushart says her "kids actually struggle with the mechanics of a clothes hanger."

Many kids never learn to do ordinary household tasks. They have no chores. Take-out and drive-through meals have replaced home cooking. And busy families who can afford it often outsource house-cleaning and lawn care.

"It's so all laid out for them," said Maushart, author of the forthcoming book "The Winter of Our Disconnect," about her efforts to wean her family from its dependence on technology. "Having so much comfort and ease is what has led to this situation - the Velcro sneakers, the Pull-Ups generation. You can pee in your pants and we'll take care of it for you!"

The issue hit home for me when a visiting 12-year-old took an ice-cube tray out of my freezer, then stared at it helplessly. Raised in a world where refrigerators have push-button ice-makers, he'd never had to get cubes out of a tray - in the same way that kids growing up with pull-tab cans don't understand can openers.

But his passivity was what bothered me most. Come on, kid! If your life depended on it, couldn't you wrestle that ice-cube tray to the ground? It's not that complicated!

Mark Bauerlein, author of the best-selling book "The Dumbest Generation," which contends that cyberculture is turning young people into know-nothings, says "the absence of technology" confuses kids faced with simple mechanical tasks.

But Bauerlein says there's a second factor: "a loss of independence and a loss of initiative." He says that growing up with cell phones and Google means kids don't have to figure things out or solve problems any more. They can look up what they need online or call mom or dad for step-by-step instructions. And today's helicopter parents are more than happy to oblige, whether their kids are 12 or 22.

"It's the dependence factor, the unimaginability of life without the new technology, that is making kids less entrepreneurial, less initiative-oriented, less independent," Bauerlein said.

Teachers in kindergarten have always had to show patience with children learning to tie shoes and zip jackets, but thanks to Velcro closures, today's kids often don't develop those skills until they are older. Sure, harried parents are grateful for Velcro when they're trying to get a kid dressed and out the door, and children learn to tie shoes eventually unless they have a real disability. But if they're capable of learning to tie their shoes before they learn to read, shouldn't we encourage them?

Some skills, of course, are no longer useful. Kids don't need to know how to add Roman numerals, write cursive or look things up in a paper-bound thesaurus. But is snail-mail already so outmoded that teenagers don't need to know how to address an envelope or put the stamp in the right spot? Ask a 15-year-old to prepare an envelope some time; you might be shocked at the result.

Lenore Skenazy, who writes a popular blog called Free-Range Kids, based on her book by the same name, has a different take. Skenazy, whose approach to parenting is decidedly anti-helicopter, agrees that we are partly to blame for our children's apparent incompetence, starting when they are infants.

"There is an onslaught of stuff being sold to us from the second they come out of the womb trying to convince us that they are nincompoops," she said. "They need to go to Gymboree or they will never hum and clap! To teach them how to walk, you're supposed to turn your child into a marionette by strapping this thing on them that holds them up because it helps them balance more naturally than 30,000 years of evolution!"

Despite all this, Skenazy thinks today's kids are way smarter than we give them credit for: "They know how to change a photo caption on a digital photo and send it to a friend. They can add the smiley face without the colon and parentheses! They never took typing but they can type faster than I can!"

Had I not been there to help that 12-year-old with the ice-cube tray, she added, the kid surely would have "whipped out his iPhone and clicked on his ice cube app to get a little video animated by a 6-year-old that explained how you get ice cubes out of a tray."

Friends playing devil's advocate say I'm wrong to indict a whole generation for the decline of skills they don't need. After all, we no longer have to grow crops, shoot deer, prime a pump or milk a cow to make dinner, but it was just a couple of generations ago that you couldn't survive in many places without that knowledge.

Others say this is simply the last gasp of the analog era as we move once and for all to the digital age. In 10 years, there won't be any ice cube trays; every fridge will have push-button ice.

But Bauerlein, a professor at Emory University who has studied culture and American life, defends my right to rail against the ignorance of youth.

"That's our job as we get old," he said. "A healthy society is healthy only if it has some degree of tension between older and younger generations. It's up to us old folks to remind teenagers: 'The world didn't begin on your 13th birthday!' And it's good for kids to resent that and to argue back. We want to criticize and provoke them. It's not healthy for the older generation to say, 'Kids are kids, they'll grow up.'

"They won't grow up," he added, "unless you do your job by knocking down their hubris."

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Turner is a shoe-in for improvement with Sixers - Philadelphia Daily News

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 07:11 AM PDT

Evan Turner wants his Li-Ning signature shoe to be "clean-cut, refined, to reflect some of me."

"Not flashy," the 76ers first-round draft choice said during media day yesterday at the Wells Fargo Center. "No flaps or lots of colors. Classy."

The signature shoe is a year away, so Turner has time to create his own signature, to show there's much more to him than what he showed in the Orlando Summer League, that there is significant substance to the 6-7 guard from Ohio State who led the Big Ten in scoring and rebounding as a junior and finished second in assists and steals.

That propelled him to the No. 2 spot in the NBA's June draft, swept up by the Sixers after Washington took Kentucky's John Wall. And that helped agent David Falk broker a deal with Li-Ning, one of China's top athletic brands. That was significant, because the Chinese shoe brands hadn't been willing to compete with Nike, adidas or Reebok for young players, choosing instead to go with veterans. Li-Ning had attracted Shaquille O'Neal; other brands reached for Jason Kidd, Shane Battier, Kevin Garnett and Steve Francis.

"We talked to a number of companies, but Evan felt Li-Ning hit a home run in their presentation," said Falk, who termed the deal "unprecedented," but declined to reveal its length.

Falk generated Michael Jordan's association with Nike, then made headlines when he negotiated a lifetime contract for Allen Iverson with Reebok.

"It has to be the best fit for the client," Falk said. "[Turner] will have his own line of products. Very few players sell shoes, but they can promote a brand. If this is a success, it can open the door for young players to look more on a global scale."

Turner and Falk recently spent a whirlwind 2 1/2 days in China, with Turner battling to adjust to the 12-hour time difference.

"They were, like, 20-hour days, tiring, but fun," Turner said. "It was unreal how much interest there was over there. It's flattering that the company showed that much interest in me, that they showed that kind of confidence in me."

He taped a commercial last week, smiling at the memory.

"Got there at 9 in the morning the first day, went till 9 at night," he said. "Second day was 9 to 4. A lot of hurry up and wait."

But the degree of success regarding the perks of pro basketball depends almost entirely on the success of the player. Turner seemed flat in Orlando, having not played competitively since the end of the college season, then waiting to get drafted and sign a contract. He began to put his game back together in Columbus, Ohio, where - tutored for a while by Sixers assistant Brian James - he acknowledged "being more comfortable, in a familiar environment."

In a perfect world, Turner will team with second-year point guard Jrue Holiday in a young, eager backcourt, backed by still-young Lou Williams and Jodie Meeks. Turner is adjusting to the pace of the pro game, to the explosive ability of players, to playing off the ball, to cutting hard off screens.

"When you're playing pickup and you don't have the ball, you're just standing there watching someone else score," he said, laughing. "But if you make one error on offense, you've turned it over and the defense is scoring in a split second. If you slack off getting back, everybody's coming right at you. You have to really react, be on your toes. Once we have a set system, it'll be different. I learn pretty well."

Turner knows new coach Doug Collins made an All-Star career of playing off the ball.

"Sometimes [Turner] is in a hurry," Collins said last week. "I said, 'Slow down when you're off the ball. Let [the opponents] make a mistake. Go away from pressure. Don't fight pressure.' I figured it out when I was playing with [former Sixers star] Maurice Cheeks; I'd throw the ball to him, let him do all the work and I'd get the shots. It was easy."

The Sixers' coaches and front-office staff didn't gnash their teeth watching the games in Orlando, wondering whether they might have made a mistake.

"I've seen strides from Orlando until now in the pickup games," general manager Ed Stefanski said. "I think he's figuring it out. I really believe he tried to do too much in Orlando. Now, he's playing within the [five-man concept]. He's a facilitator; he makes plays for people and for himself.

"I can go through a list of people that had phenomenal summers and didn't make it in the NBA. I could go back and make another list of kids who had horrible summers and became very good players. One guy who struggled was Holiday two summers ago in Orlando."

The clear hope, then, is that Li-Ning and the Sixers have put the right shoes on the right guy. *

'Billboard Family' puts itself - kids and all - on sale - San Francisco Gate

Posted: 27 Sep 2010 11:25 PM PDT

It's no surprise that we've come to this: there's a family for sale on the Internet . No, these aren't hostages held by Somali pirates or advertised on a Craigslist adult S&M posting. I'm talking about a...

It's no surprise that we've come to this: there's a family for sale on the Internet.

No, these aren't hostages held by Somali pirates or advertised on a Craigslist adult S&M posting. I'm talking about a middle American family that may have willingly, enthusiastically crossed the line between personal brand management and indentured servitude.

Anyone with a digital footprint is selling themselves these days. But in the spooky wasteland where product placement meets slavery, you will find the Martins.

Not to diss entrepreneurial spirit in a down economy. Patriarch Carl Martin told me today that "overall, this has been the best decision we have ever made."

The Martins call themselves "The Billboard Family," with what ad industry site Adrants says is "an offering that allows advertisers to own the Martin's lives." Yikes. Dad Carl, mom Amy and kids Layne and Kaitlyn have turned themselves into human signage. With a social media upsell.

I know they're serious but it's a pretty funny pitch on their website. "We are a REAL family of 4 (with one on the way) who wears YOUR COMPANY SHIRTS all day long, taking loads of photos and videos. We then promote your company online on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and our Website, as well as to all of the many people who ask us why we are all wearing the same shirts."

Uh, because you're from St. Louis?

Carl says "most of the companies we have already reached out to are ones whose products we use." Their "main demographic is family oriented companies, being that we are a real family." Still, "we are happy to advertise for any companies that do not violate our terms and conditions."

They may be an actual family, but potential sponsors usually like organic reality, as in real doctors who prescribe Nexium in their practice, not people just selling their endorsement. But on their video, the likable Martins even show a sonogram snap of their unborn child.

Getting a t-shirt on a fetus might be tough.

I was just about to ask the marketing department here about inking a deal for the Martins to wear Chronicle t-shirts -- you have to send them the shirts; like Google, they don't make products. Then I wondered just how many people might actually notice what the family is wearing.

No worries there. The Martins "travel and take vacations frequently" from their Missouri home to places like Chicago, Seattle, and Walt Disney World (where at might be hard to stand out among people wearing black socks and bermudas). "We have plans to travel much more in the near future."

Don't we all?

They also have 2,700 followers on Twitter and 200 Facebook fans. (Over 2,500," Carl says, if you include friends on personal pages.) Not exactly the makings of a viral stampede. "Many of our followers help spread the word," according to Carl. "The potential to reach a large audience is there."

The "Billboard Family" also has two competitors: I Wear Your Shirt (Carl: "They are not family-centric") and Girl In Your Shirt (doesn't sound very family-centric).

In their "About Us" section they have more personal stats for each of them than the average big league ball player: eye color, favorite color, height, weight and shoe size.

How else would you ever know that four-year-old Layne wants a Power Wheels Cadillac Escalade? Carl's dream job is to be a "professional t-shirt wearer", which makes sense given this particular value-added business proposition.

Carl, who has a computer sciences degree, was "inspired" in this new enterprise "by his desire to make a respectable living." Well, who these days can really afford to make fun of that?

Also, he said to me he "really wanted to teach our kids about self-reliance and business..They're very young but they have been very involved..They also love the attention."

The Martin site is thick with optimism, including nifty separate sections for them to publish all their "National Press, "Local Press", and "Other Media Outlets." They're all empty. I wonder where my blog post will go.

They also have Yelp-like social media page for clients who write "a review of our services." Empty. Also a place for Flickr photos and TouTube videos. Zip. Except a short about the Martins. To be fair, they only launched a few days ago.

But in the "Only 84 Days left for sale!" calendar, 30 of them are filled with "SOLD" signs, all for around $550 per, calculated by their graduated pricing formula throughout the year (Would you rather have four people wearing your brand on their tees or buy an iPad?).

So far one advertiser - "Studio-R" - has bought the Martins for a day, according to the calendar. And they boast that their October through November "Non-Profit slots [are] filled" by a children's literacy program, "Everybody WINS!"

Maybe they do. Here I am writing about them. Besides, it's a buyer's market out there and who's to say the Martins aren't the next big thing in digital marketing services?

Posted By: Phil Bronstein (Email, Twitter) | September 27 2010 at 03:20 PM

It's no surprise that we've come to this: there's a family for sale on the Internet . No, these aren't hostages held by Somali pirates or advertised on a Craigslist adult S&M...

Kids Shoes

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

“Are today's parents raising a generation of nincompoops? - Seattle Post Intelligencer” plus 2 more

“Are today's parents raising a generation of nincompoops? - Seattle Post Intelligencer” plus 2 more

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